Tag: Strikeforce MMA

With Strikeforce’s big Gina Carano vs. "Cyborg" Santos main event on Showtime just a day away, we go head-to-head to determine just how unmissable this card is after all the injuries, whether Nick Diaz has hurt our feelings for good, and more in this edition of Ben vs. Ben.

After all the injuries and changes to the line-up, where does this Strikeforce card rank on your must-see MMA spectrum?

BF: If we’re looking at a 10-point scale, with 10 being UFC 100 and 1 being YAMMA Pit Fighting, I give the current iteration of this Strikeforce card a 6.5. Originally it was probably at least an eight, maybe even a nine. Then it lost Overeem, Thomson, and Riggs. Then it actually got a little better when Jay Hieron stepped in. Then Nick Diaz declined to even submit to a piss test and, well, this is where we find ourselves now.

This means he’ll miss a second straight fight because of his street fighting antics, and the Strikeforce heavyweight strap that he won back in 2007 and has yet to defend will stay on the shelf…or will it?

"I don’t think Overeem was ever planning on fighting Brett," Reilly said. "I think Overeem is afraid of Brett. He’s afraid of a big striker who is going to knock him out. … I don’t think anyone is going to admit that, but I’m not going to shy away from it. He’s had two opportunities to fight Brett but he hasn’t taken either of [them]. … if I was Overeem, I would avoid Brett too. It’s a horrible f***ing fight for Overeem."

If you pay attention early on, two things become very apparent: 1) Pat Miletich is the best fighter-turned-color man/technical analyst that there is, and 2) Gurgel is still committed to being the ground guy who chooses to stand and bang in an effort to entertain fans and “please promoters,” as Stephen Quadros puts it. That’s at least in part of what got him bounced from the UFC (okay, really it was losing fights, but that was a symptom and not the disease) and yet here it results in him having the fight of the night. It makes me wonder, is Gurgel, for better or worse, a fighter crafted by the sensibilities of fans and promoters? And if so, is that necessarily a bad thing?

(Some say Goldberg had a legit sexual harassment claim after what happens in the 0:49 mark in this interview, but clearly he was asking for it walking in there dressed like that.)

The war of words between Strikeforce fighters Joe Riggs and Phil Baroni this week seemed to promise an interesting encounter on today’s media conference call to promote Saturday night’s Strikeforce event on Showtime. The only problem is that Riggs failed to pick up a phone in time, so Baroni was left alone with Jake Shields and the notoriously tight-lipped Robbie Lawler to do all the talking. Fortunately Baroni had prepared all his life for just such a moment.

As promised yesterday, here is the full interview with Joe Riggs, who opens up about his past painkiller addiction, his ongoing attempts to get Jake Shields into the cage with him, and of course, the possibly “pharmaceutically enhanced” Phil Baroni who he’ll meet in Strikeforce on Showtime this Saturday night.

Cage Potato: Thanks for talking with me, Joe. You’re fighting Phil Baroni this weekend, but I think we all know that’s not the fight you wanted. You were pretty adamant about trying to get a fight with Jake Shields.

Riggs: Yeah, that was a fight that I’ve been trying to get for a couple years now and he’s managed to squeak his way out of it every time we were supposed to fight. This time contracts were signed and everything was ready to go and he just wormed his way out of it. He’s the type of guy who just wants to fight the fights where the match-ups are stylistically in his favor. I think he also wants fights, like this one [against Robbie Lawler] where if things don’t go his way he has excuses.